INDIANAPOLIS-- Until its demise, in 1957, the
Mille Miglia was motor racings greatest free show. Run over public roads
closed, sort of, for 24 hours, it amounted to a 1000-mile lap of Italy,
and
the world turned out to watch.

It wasnt every day you had Fangio skimming your front gate.

Stirling Moss Mercedes-Benz won in May 1955, and his average speed, a
trace
away from 98 mph, was to stand as the fastest ever. Italian friends, kids
at
the time, can remember the silver car hurtling by, but for one of them the
exhilaration later gave way to tears.

"In my own mind," he said, "I had seen racing cars for the last time."
This was Mario Andretti, 15 years old, and about to leave with his family
for a new life in America.

"It didnt seem too much like it at the time," he said, "but our lives
began
to turn around when we got to Ellis Island."

From there the family settled in Nazareth, Pa., where an uncle already
lived. In 45 years, Andretti has never left.

"So far as I knew, the only race over there was the Indianapolis 500,"
Andretti said with a smile. "I understood we had to go to the States -
Italy
sure as hell wasnt offering us much -- but I was obsessed with being a
race
driver, and it seemed like I was kissing it goodbye."

We did a book together at the end of 1978, the year in which Andretti won
the World Championship with Lotus. Naturally, a lot of taping was
necessary,
and I spent a week with him in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for he was testing at
Interlagos. What impressed me perhaps more than anything else was his way
of
dealing with people, be they race engineers, waiters, fellow drivers or
fans. Each wanted different things of him, and he was comfortable with all
of them. Charisma cannot be taught.

Ever since coming to know Andretti well, I tend to have little patience
with
drivers who go on about what a hard time they had breaking into racing.
Marios improbable life story reads one of those epic rags-to-riches
paperbacks that people buy for long flights. Born near Trieste, in 1940,
his
part of Italy became Yugoslavian after World War II.

"Wed lived well until Communism arrived, but then suddenly everyones
equal, right? Youre damn right everyones equal -- we all had nothing! Now,
they were real compassionate about it; they said if we didn't like it, we
could go some place else. From then until 1955 we lived in a displaced
persons camp. You dont forget those things when youre a kid; you dont
forget when your mothers always crying, and you dont know why. Im not
just blowing smoke here."

In those miserable days, Mario clung to a growing obsession with motor
racing, with Alberto Ascari his god. And when, in June 1955, the Andrettis
sailed for New York, and a new life, it was without a backward glance.
Ascari, the last link, tragically had been killed only days before.

Andretti said that, in all kinds of ways, the move across the water was
the
seminal moment of his life. Contrary to what he had believed, America was
alive with motor racing, and on a much less elitist level than in Europe,
so
that there were routes into it for a kid with fierce ambition, even if his
pockets were empty.

Resisting his mothers entreaties that he become an electrician, Mario
sought a way into racing and eventually made his mark in the dangerous
sprint cars of the early 60s.

"You had to drive those things very desperately," he said, "but I didn't
give a thought to safety back then."

By 1964, he had progressed to Indy cars and the following year won the
first
of many national championships. "Help," by the Beatles, was number one
when
he won his first championship race; he would win his last in the spring of
1993.

Andretti was genuinely a phenomenon. As a Ford-contracted driver, in 1967
he
ran NASCARs biggest race, the Daytona 500, and shook the stock car
establishment by winning it. Two years later came the victory in the
Indianapolis 500, surely the first of many. Amazingly, though, in 24
subsequent races at the Brickyard, Mario never again won there.
"If it had been the Indy 400," he said with a grimace, "Id have had at
least six.

"Right from when I started, being one of the boys was never enough. If you
re satisfied with just being there, forget it. You may have a good time,
but
youre never going to win, because racing gives you nothing but fun --
anything else you have to take.

"A lot of people have a talent for it, but most never realize their full
potential. Its easier to leave that last bit untapped. But I was never a
weekend racer."

It was odd, we long thought in Europe, that this character with the
Italian
name should be over there, racing against such as A.J. Foyt. Did he not
belong more logically at Monza?

Andretti himself entertained similar thoughts, but dimly for quite a
while.
While Ascari, Italys greatest post-war driver, had been the hero of his
youth, and his ultimate ambition was always to become World Champion, in
the
60s Indy-car racing paid much better than Formula One, and Mario had too
good a thing going to sacrifice everything to sentiment.

There would come a time for Europe, but it wasnt yet.

It was Colin Chapman who first began to spread the word about Mario. The
Lotus boss had taken his team to Indianapolis, saw this skinny kid run
there
and been much impressed. And when the legendary Jimmy Clark was killed,
early in 1968, Chapman concluded that Andretti was the man Lotus needed.
At the end of that year, Mario accepted a one-off drive in the United
States
Grand Prix, and rather confirmed Chapmans faith by taking pole position,
with Jackie Stewart - after Clarks death very much king of the hill in
Formula One - second fastest. The establishment took note.

Still, Andretti declined to commit to Formula One, instead concentrating
on
his Indy-car program, and taking in Grands Prix, sometimes for Lotus,
sometimes for Ferrari, as and when they fitted his schedule. On one of
these
"day excursion" trips, he won the 1971 South African Grand Prix for
Ferrari,
and there were also many international sports car victories in Enzos
cars.

"Enzo wanted me to sign right there, just drive for him, which would have
been cream for the cat -- I mean, Ive always said that the proudest day of
my life was when I became an American citizen, and I mean it, but the
blood
in my veins is Italian blood, and a passport will never change that. I
wanted like hell to sign, but my contracts in the States precluded
that."

There would have been another problem, too. If Andretti were to be a
full-time Ferrari driver, it was clear that the Commendatore would expect
him to live above the shop, and that Mario would never countenance. When
eventually he did put Formula One on the front burner, running races in
Europe throughout the summer, still he ducked back to Nazareth between
times.

"It really wasnt such a big deal," he said. "Id go Concorde to JFK, then
take my own plane down to an airfield near home. No problem. In fact,
there
was another strip even closer, but the runway wasnt really long enough, so
it was a bit too character-building on a regular basis."

That was the thing about Andretti. You got the whole nine yards.

This was not only a great race driver, but one who also looked the part,
and
acted it, a man with the presence, like Fangio, like Senna, to quieten a
room when he entered it. My wife, who cares nothing for racing, was
mesmerized on meeting him for the first time.

"There," she said, "is a star. Even if you didnt know who he was, or what
he did, youd know that much about him."

In 1976, by then 36 years old, Andretti finally devoted himself to Formula
One, with Lotus. In 1977 he won more races than anyone else, yet missed
the
World Championship by a whisker, but the following year, in the beautiful
and revolutionary Lotus 79, he was unbeatable, facing competition only
from
team mate Ronnie Peterson.

It was the height of tragic irony that he should clinch the title at
Monza,
place of childhood dreams, for that same day Peterson lost his life.
Andretti, with his gift for saying it all in a handful of words, had only
a
brief comment on the steps outside the hospital: "Unhappily, motor racing
is
also this ..."

We loved him in Formula One, and not only because he was exciting on the
track and a seam of gold with his laconic one-liners. More than anything,
one always had the impression that here was a man among boys, a pro, a
fellow whod been round the block a time or two. If there was humor, so
there was also wisdom. And, of course, there was the pure infectious
passion
for what he was doing.

How could any journalist go wrong, though, with quotes like this? On Chris
Amon, he of the sublime natural talent, who somehow never won a Grand
Prix:
"If Chris went into the undertaking business, people would stop dying
..."

At Paul Ricard, during practice for the 1978 French Grand Prix, he went
off
the road at the ultra-quick first turn, the Lotus flying a considerable
distance before coming to rest. Mario, quite all right, ran back to the
pits, unfazed. "Good flight plan, bad landing," he said with a grin.

After six seasons of Formula One, he tired of trans-Atlantic commuting. It
was the end of 1981, and his 42nd birthday approached. Ahead lay 13 more
seasons of Indy-car racing - and the odd guest appearance elsewhere. But
Andretti wasnt quite done with Formula One.

Enzo Ferrari, his team in disarray after the death of Gilles Villeneuve
and
the injuries suffered by Didier Pironi, needed a driver for the 1982
Italian
Grand Prix. He called Mario, who accepted the offer in a beat: "How do you
turn down a Ferrari ride - at Monza?"

Amid scenes of hysterical Monza joy, such I have not seen before or since,
he put the car on pole position. A matchless ambassador for the sport, he
had won races, by the time of his retirement in 1994, in four decades. He
had won the World Championship, the USAC National Championship, the CART
Championship, the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500 ... and he still likes
to run at Le Mans, feeling that the lack of a victory here - he was second
in 1995 -- represents a gap in his resume.

Any regrets now? "Oh, having retired two years too soon, I guess. Nigel
Mansell was my teammate for my last couple of seasons, and we really didnt
get along. At all. We both quit Indy car racing at the end of 94, and I
should have stayed on.

"Other than that, well, probably I wish Id committed to Formula One sooner
than I did, I wish Id gone to McLaren, instead of Alfa Romeo, in 1981 ...
things like that. But those things dont really fall into the category of
regrets. Ive been so blessed in my career, raced more than 30 years,
achieved most of my goals and come out of it in one piece. Id be a fool to
talk about regrets, wouldnt I?"

Was there ever a man who loved racing more? Andretti doubts it.
"I always felt," he said, "I was put on this earth to drive race cars."

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